In recent years, state ballot initiatives have served as powerful tools to advance economic opportunity for working families. Voters directly have raised the minimum wage, secured paid sick leave, protected abortion access, enacted bail reform, expanded Medicaid, and increased funding for public education—all popular progressive economic policies that some state legislatures have failed to enact. However, some conservative state legislatures have responded by overturning or limiting recent wins. And in the few Southern states where voters can access ballot measures—Arkansas, Florida, and Oklahoma—conservative legislators are waging war against the ballot initiative process itself, attempting to obstruct the will of voters and make it permanently more difficult for the public to directly decide on policy choices.

Why ballot initiatives are important for advancing economic opportunity

Ballot initiatives are a form of direct democracy in which voters have the power to decide on a proposed new law or constitutional amendment. Currently, 26 states and the District of Columbia offer voters access to ballot measures in some form, as do many more localities.

While more than half of the country has access to some form of direct democracy, ballot access is heavily concentrated in Western and Northern states. Only three states in the Deep South—Arkansas, Florida, and Oklahoma—effectively have ballot initiative processes. Attacks on the ballot process are intensifying in each of these states.

Ballot initiatives are more important than ever for advancing worker-centered policies that both Congress and state legislatures have failed to enact despite clear voter support. For example, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly blocked legislative proposals to increase the minimum wage (federally and in many states) despite the popularity of increasing the minimum wage and the positive impacts it has on workers and families. In the absence of federal action, 30 states, the District of Columbia, and almost 70 localities have adopted minimum wages above the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour. Of these states, 43% (13 states) used ballot measures to secure the increase. An additional three states used direct democracy to increase minimum wages that already exceeded the federal floor.

Ballot measures have been especially critical to achieving minimum wage increases in Southern states like Arkansas and Florida. Only four other states in the South—Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia—have increased their minimum wages via legislation likely due to higher minimum wages in neighboring states or Democratic legislative majorities.

Paid leave laws have remained similarly scarce across the South. Of the 18 states with some form of statewide paid sick leave, only one—Maryland—is in the South. Attempts to expand paid leave access in Southern states have so far been limited to narrow state legislation covering only some public employees, or local efforts threatened with state preemption, demonstrating the need for ballot initiatives.  

Right-wing attempts to weaken direct democracy in the South

In response to the success of progressive ballot measures, right-wing lawmakers have launched attacks on direct democracy, particularly in the South.  

Opponents of ballot access have especially targeted the signature process to delay or block measures from reaching the ballot. This strategy arose in Mississippi via a court challenge to a 2020 ballot initiative allowing the use of medical marijuana, which 74% of voters approved. As advocates including the Mississippi NAACP were building support for new ballot measures to expand Medicaid, the courts struck down the ballot process. Even though Mississippi’s Constitution guarantees voters access to ballot initiatives, the state Supreme Court ruled that no ballot initiative could be valid because of outdated constitutional language establishing the signature rules. (The old rules do not account for the lower number of congressional districts in Mississippi after redistricting, making it impossible to reach the signature threshold to put a measure on the ballot.)  

Following the Mississippi blueprint, direct democracy opponents in other Southern states have begun to challenge the signature process. After Arkansas voters passed minimum wage increases through ballot measures, the Arkansas legislature passed new state laws that could empower the state attorney general to invalidate a request for signatures because of the title of the measure. If and when the signature process begins, a host of laws make it much more difficult for canvassers to collect signatures. Canvassers must now confirm the voter reads the ballot title, inform voters that petition fraud is a crime, check voter identification, and file an affidavit stating they have complied with all laws. Scare tactics directed at both petition canvassers and signers make it harder to collect signatures out of fear that exercising their constitutional rights may lead to imprisonment.

Following minimum wage increases that passed via ballot measures, the Florida legislature followed a similar strategy of restricting the signature process for citizen-led constitutional amendments. Their legislation excludes people with felonies, people without citizenship, and non-Florida residents from being canvassers. It also requires canvassers to register with the state or face a third-degree felony charge which could be punishable by up to five years in prison. Once the signatures are collected, the law also requires the sponsor to deliver the petitions within 10 days after a voter signs, as opposed to once all signatures are collected. These restrictions deeply limit the number of people who can collect signatures and add burdensome labor to the petition sponsor by requiring frequent trips to deliver the petitions. In 2025, advocates met the signature threshold to put recreational cannabis on the ballot, but the new laws invalidated over 70,000 signatures and prevented the measure from reaching voters.  

Finally, conservative lawmakers in Oklahoma have launched attacks on the ballot process. Oklahoma organizers have already secured the signatures for a 2026 ballot measure to increase the minimum wage. In response, lawmakers attacked the signature process, restricting the share of eligible voters who can sign initiative petitions per county and consequently weakening the influence of voters in the most populous counties like Oklahoma and Tulsa counties. The Oklahoma Policy Institute explains that this new requirement would “exclude 2.2 million registered voters (or 94.4% of registered voters) from signing a petition for statutory amendments.” The restriction also has racial implications with Tulsa County home to 23% of Black Oklahomans and Oklahoma County home to 41% of Black Oklahomans. Compounding the new restrictions, the law also gives the secretary of state the authority to determine the legality of a proposal. The new law also requires that paid petitioners disclose their employer to the secretary of state and prohibits paying canvassers with out-of-state funding or based on the amount of signatures they collect, among other tactics to invoke fear.

Overall, these new petition processes can make signature collection more costly due to administrative barriers that only allow the most well-funded campaigns to have any chance of making the ballot. Consequently, the process now lends itself to causes backed by corporate interests or wealthy supporters which may not reflect the needs of average voters, contradicting the goals of ballot access policies intended to democratize decision-making.

Despite attacks, voters are still fighting to launch ballot initiative campaigns and protect direct democracy

Despite growing attacks on the ballot process, organizing across the country—and in the South—persists. In June 2026, Oklahoma State Question 832 will be on the ballot, proposing to gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2029. In Florida, ballot measures proposing various constitutional amendments are moving forward to expand Medicaid, legalize recreational use of marijuana, and codify the right to clean and healthy water.

Advocates are also organizing to protect the constitutional right to ballot access itself. Arkansas Public Policy Panel and the Protect AR Rights coalition continue to fight back and win against new restrictions on ballot measures, filing lawsuits and proposing a new ballot question that would make ballot access a “fundamental right.” Their new ballot question was approved in July 2025, clearing one of the last barriers for signature collection. In Oklahoma, advocates have filed two lawsuits opposing new restrictions on ballot measures—especially the state’s ability to disrupt the signature collection process—and are awaiting a decision from the state’s Supreme Court.

Voters are similarly fighting back in states where legislators have rolled back successful pro-worker ballot measures. In response to the Nebraska legislature weakening a new paid sick leave law won via ballot measure, the Respect Nebraska Voters coalition is organizing for a new ballot measure to make it more difficult for the legislature to reverse the will of voters. Missouri legislators repealed parts of a successful ballot measure that established paid sick leave and attached a cost-of-living increase to the minimum wage. Voter outrage over the legislative betrayal has “kicked the hornet’s nest,” according to the bipartisan Respect Missouri Voters coalition, which recently submitted over 20 versions of new petitions to protect ballot initiatives. If implemented, these petitions would require an 80% legislative majority to overturn a successful ballot initiative law or constitutional amendment, prohibit barriers to signature collection, allow corrections to misleading ballot language, and add other ballot protections.

The essence of ballot access is the will of the people becoming law. Despite legislative efforts to obstruct direct democracy, Southern advocates and voters continue to push for the voice of everyday people to be heard and for policies that improve the lives of workers and their family members.